


Tremble, Tremor, Shake

by scxlias



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Brother Feels, Gen, Seizures, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 19:06:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13933377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scxlias/pseuds/scxlias
Summary: Tim doesn’t answer. He lurches like he’s going to go for the toilet again, but he doesn’t quite make it, instead dry heaving once, twice and then slumping against the wall again.Dick thinks that’s the end of it.He’s wrong.Tim slumps against the wall and immediately starts seizing.





	Tremble, Tremor, Shake

**Author's Note:**

> slight mention of an 'overdose' in tim being exposed to too much fear gas, seizure written from my own personal experience treating epileptic seizures. 
> 
> written for the prompt: I don’t want to add to your workload or anything so feel free to just ignore this if you want, but could you please write something fluffy with big bro Dick taking care of Tim? Your latest fic gave me Feelings and I just want some fluffy h/c with these two being cute brothers. Thanks if you do decide to write this :) If you don’t have time or aren’t inspired or whatever though don’t worry about it.

“Hey Timmy!” Dick calls as he enters Tim’s apartment. He pockets the spare key that Tim’s been trying to get away from him for months and shuts the door behind him. He’s showing up uninvited, Tim hasn’t stayed at the manor for a while, and there’s been some sort of bug going around, so Dick wanted to check on him. He shouldn’t be surprised by the lack of answer. But it feels wrong, somehow. 

Dick steps further into the apartment. 

Then he hears it. 

He races to the bathroom and slams open the door with more force than is strictly necessary. Tim’s hunched over the toilet, still in uniform, his whole body practically convulsing at he retches, his skin clammy and pale. His hands tremble where they’re gripping the edges of the seat. 

He doesn’t notice Dick’s entrance. 

It takes several long moments before Tim slumps to the side, resting his back against the wall beside the toilet. 

He looks at Dick, puzzled. 

“What’re you doin’ here?” he asks, like he can’t quite make his mouth cooperate with the shape of the words he’s trying to say. “You’re dead?”

It sounds like a question and it shatters Dick’s heart. He’s been back for months. Tim knows this. Tim’s still angry with with him about it, and rightfully so. He’s angry with himself too, for letting Bruce talk him into leaving his family when they’d just lost Damian. But that’s not the problem here. 

Dick can beat himself up later. 

Right now, he has a spleen-less brother vomiting his guts up and he doesn’t know why. 

“What happened?” Dick demands, dropping to his knees and pressing his wrist to Tim’s forehead, trying to test his temperature. Tim’s burning up, his temperature way higher than it should be. 

“Fear gas. Not Scarecrow. Too high dose.” Tim’s trembling has gotten worse. His eyes are going glassy and unfocused. His words still sound off, like his tongue is too big for his mouth.  “Mouth tastes funny. Like metal.”

And then Tim smacks his hands over his ears, his eyes drifting off to the side. 

“Timmy, how long ago was this? How long have you been feeling like this? Timmy, answer me kiddo,” Dick says, patting the side of Tim’s face to try to get him to focus. 

Tim shakes his head, and his eyes focus on Dick’s face for a split second before they slide away again. “What’re y’doin’ here? You’re dead,” he says again, his voice laced with confusion as he struggles to focus on Dick again. 

“Tim, Tim, I need you to look at me, please. Come on, kiddo, I need to know what happened to you.”

Tim doesn’t answer. He lurches like he’s going to go for the toilet again, but he doesn’t quite make it, instead dry heaving once, twice and then slumping against the wall again. 

Dick thinks that’s the end of it. 

He’s wrong. 

Tim slumps against the wall and immediately starts seizing. 

Dick panics. His hands flutter uselessly at Tim’s sides for a moment before Tim’s elbow smacks loudly against the wall and he’s finally startled into action. He goes into Nightwing mode, letting his training take over, so he doesn’t have to think about the fact that his little brother is having a seizure. 

He gently eases Tim away from the wall, and lays him on his side, cushioning Tim’s head on his thigh so Tim doesn’t hit his head on the hard tiled floor. He removes the domino, and fumbles with the clasps on Tim’s uniform so he can loosen the restricting collar of the kevlar shirt. 

He runs one hand through Tim’s hair while he struggles to get his in ear comm out of his pocket, keeping up a steady stream of mindless talk the whole time he does. 

When he finally patches a call through to Babs, he sighs hard enough that his whole chest hurts. 

“Babs! Tim’s having a seizure and I don’t know what to do.”

“How long has he been seizing?” Babs’ voice has a nervous tremor that gives away how scared this makes her, but she keeps her tone level and calm otherwise, straight down to business. 

“Around a minute,” Dick responds with a quick glance at his watch. 

“Good, that’s not bad. Watch the time. If it goes longer than four minutes, you’re going to have to call an ambulance. It’s usually five, but I’m taking any risks. Do you know what caused it?”

Dick shakes his head, and then remembers that Babs can’t see him. “I think he got dosed with fear gas.”

And then he smacks himself in the forehead. Fear gas. Tim had said he got dosed, too big of a dose. He’d probably only given himself one dose of the anti-toxin. That wouldn’t be enough to counteract an overdose. 

“Babs, I think he overdosed on fear gas. He said it wasn’t Scarecrow that dosed him, so it was too much, but I think he only gave himself one dose of the anti-toxin. If I give him another will it help, or will it only make it worse?” 

They’re over the two minute mark now. Dick’s hands are shaking. He checks Tim’s pulse and finds it, still strong, if a little too fast, but it does nothing to ease the growing knot of anxiety in his chest. 

“I think there’s a bigger chance of it helping than of it hurting. Tim keeps emergency supplies in the cabinet under his bathroom sink, attached to the underside of the counter, can you get them without going too far?”

“We’re in the bathroom, I can get them, but I don’t know what strain of the toxin I’m trying to counteract. Which anti-toxin should I use?” Dick asks as he fumbles the first aid kit out from the cabinet and sets it open on the floor at his side. 

Babs is silent for a long, terrifying moment. 

They’re nearing the three minute mark. 

“Babs!”

“Try SC-9. It’s the newest one we’ve cooked up. It covers the most bases. It’s your best bet.” 

They’ve hit the three and a half minute mark by the time Dick sticks the needle into Tim’s arm. 

He waits with his breath caught in his throat, his trembling hand wrapped around Tim’s, whispering soft encouragements, for forty five seconds. The seizing dies down, but Tim’s still unresponsive. 

“Dick, call nine-one-one,” Babs says, her voice shaking. 

“Wha’? Wha’s--” Tim says, and Dick makes a very undignified sound. 

“Oh thank god, is that him? Is he responding?” Babs asks, her voice just a little squeaky. 

“Yeah,” Dick responds. 

“Okay. Okay, good. See if he can remember his name, where he is, and who you are. If he can do all of that, get him to bed, and let him sleep it off. Keep an eye on him and bring him to the manor as soon as he’s up to it so Alfred can take a look at him. If he can’t, get him to the manor ASAP.”

Dick nods, forgetting again that Babs can’t see him. 

“Hey, kiddo, can you tell me your name?”

“S’Tim. I’m Tim. You know that,” Tim answers after a beat of silence. 

“Do you know where you are?” 

A nod. “My apartment.”

“How about who I am?” 

Another nod. “A giant Dick.” Tim giggles, a little hysterically, at that, and then winces. “Ow. Head.”

“How’s our boy, Dick?” Babs asks in his ear. 

Dick laughs, a little breathlessly. “He’s okay. Gonna needs some painkillers and a nap, but he’ll be okay. I’ll bring him around the manor tomorrow.” 

“Keep me posted if anything changes.” 

Dick promises he will, and then Babs cuts the line. Dick turns his attention back to his brother, pushing Tim’s sweat-soaked hair back off of his forehead. 

“What happened, Dick?” Tim asks in a quiet voice. 

“You had a seizure kiddo. You got overdosed with fear gas, and you didn’t give yourself enough of the anti-toxin. You’re really lucky I decided to swing by to check on you. You could’ve been really hurt. You could’ve…” Dick trails off. He doesn’t want to think about what could have happened if he hadn’t gotten there when he did. 

No use dwelling on what ifs. 

Tim looks to be deep in thought for a long moment. “Can I go to sleep?”

Dick huffs out a soft laugh. “Yeah. Let’s get you out of that uniform and into bed.” 

Tim tries to stand right after that, and Dick has to catch him before he falls. Tim tries to steady himself a few more times, before Dick gives up on watching him try to stand on weak knees. He scoops Tim up in his arms, almost staggering under his weight, and very carefully carries him in to his bedroom. Tim curls up into the tiniest ball he can make himself the second Dick sets him down, his eyes screwed shut tightly.

“You’ve gotten heavier,” Dick teases.

“You were gone for a long time,” Tim spits back. 

Dick flinches.

Tim doesn’t open his eyes, but he still winces a bit after that. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“No. You did,” Dick says firmly, but not harshly, and steps out of the room. It takes him ten minutes of rummaging around in Tim’s kitchen and bathroom to finally find where he keeps his painkillers, and another several minutes to find and fill up a glass with water and to dig up a straw from somewhere, and dear god, he really had been gone for a long time. The subtle differences between the before and the now are suddenly glaring as Dick tries to navigate Tim’s apartment. He finds an ice pack and a packet of saltines for good measure, too, and goes back to Tim’s room, careful to be quiet in case Tim’s fallen asleep. 

When he enters the room again, Tim cracks one eye open, almost surprised to see Dick standing there. 

“You didn’t leave?” Tim asks, like that was what he was expecting.

And isn’t that just like someone’s jumping on the already shattered pieces of Dick’s heart. He coughs to clear his throat, and sits on the edge of Tim’s bed, setting down the items he brought in on the nightstand. 

“I’m not about to leave you like this, Timmy.”

“You left before.”

“I didn’t have a choice before. Luthor stopped my heart and I wasn’t even a day out from that and Bruce was asking me to go undercover. It was just too much, and I said yes without thinking. I didn’t do it because I wanted to leave you, kiddo. I’d never do that. And I’m not going to leave you now,” Dick says softly, laying the ice pack on Tim’s forehead. 

Tim lets out a sound he’d probably be embarrassed about if he were more present. 

“Didn’t know you really died. Y’never said anything.” 

Dick just shrugs. “Didn’t want you to worry. I’m dealing with it,” he says nonchalantly. 

Tim weakly swats at Dick’s thigh. “Shut up. You’re dumb. Shoulda told us.”

Dick chuckles, and reaches for the water glass, coaxes Tim into taking a sip and swallowing some painkillers with it. 

“You should’ve called when you got dosed with way more fear toxin than any of us have ever taken.”

“Thought I had it.”

Dick just shakes his head and sticks the straw between Tim’s lips again. 

“Drink some more, and then let’s get you out of that uniform so you can get some rest. There are some saltines here for when you can stomach something. And I’ll switch out the ice pack later, if you want.” 

Both of Tim’s eyes snap open at that. “You’re going to stay?” 

Dick nods, tugging the top of Tim’s uniform off, and turning to rifle through Tim’s drawers for sweats and a shirt. He comes up with sweats that definitely used to be Cass’ and a shirt that definitely used to be his, and turns back to his little brother. 

“I said it before. I’m not leaving you, especially not like this. I’m staying till you’re well enough to go to the manor for a check up, and I’m staying till I’m sure you’re alright after that, and even when I leave after  _ that _ , I’m only ever a phone call away.”

He carefully helps Tim out of the rest of his uniform and into the sweats and shirt, and sits back on the edge of the bed, carding his fingers through Tim’s hair while he holds the ice pack in place on Tim’s forehead. 

“I’m not going anywhere, kiddo. I’m staying right here.”

Tim just leans into Dick’s touch and sighs and drifts off to sleep. 

Dick stays. 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr at _[grxysxns](http://grxysxns.tumblr.com/)_ if you want to say hi!


End file.
